As first-hand accounts created by participants or observers, primary sources can enrich your research as they allow you to connect directly with the time period you are investigating. There are many types of primary sources available to you including library databases, digital collections and online repositories. The links on this page will take you to specific primary source collections.
In other words, an historian uses a primary source to create theories about what life was like at the time the primary source was created. For example, a newspaper article can tell an historian how society was talking about race, gender, or class in a public setting, and how that may have shaped peoples' perceptions of one another.
Numerous collections of primary sources have been digitized and made freely accessible on the Internet. As the topics for this course will be very broad, we cannot cover every place you might find a primary source in this guide. However, a few tips:
The WSU Libraries have several databases that can be used to locate electronic primary sources. Here are some to consider: